Ejengi is a Bayaka male initiation dance, spirit and ceremony. The ejengi spirit is entirely clothed in sweeping palm fronds and assumes mesmerising swirling and cascading dance forms.
Louis Sarno has recorded many hours of ejengi ceremonies in the Central African Republic. All of the examples in this set come from a single recording made at an ejengi ceremony in Yandoumbé on the 4th December 1992. Ejengi ceremonies can last for days, weeks, or even months, and progress through multiple stages. Included in these recordings are examples of ejengi declaiming, songs while ejengi is in his lair, and the sounds of leaves popping through the forest as ejengi communicates. The associated images are all taken from another ejengi ceremony at Mongengé village in the Central African Republic in 1987.